Cardiorespiratory Fitness, Body Fatness Effect on Submaximal Systolic Blood Pressure and Cardiovascular Prognosis among Young Adults

Cardiovascular (CV) diseases (CVDs) are known to be the leading cause of death globally, as CVDs account for the highest rate of mortality compared to any other causes. The mortality from CVDs, is projected to increase to nearly 23.3 million by 2030. Mortality number due to CVD in the United States is 600,000 per year, thus representing nearly 1 in every 4 deaths. Exercise blood pressure (BP) is an important marker of CV events that are associated with incident CV morbidity and mortality among individuals with or without any CVD at present. Elevated exercise BP among individuals with normal resting BP is a marker of incidence of hypertension and other CV events later in life. Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF), body mass index (BMI) and body fatness are known predictors for CVD risk factors, morbidity, and mortality. It is important to examine how CRF, BMI and body fatness effect submaximal systolic blood pressure (SSBP). We therefore examined the independent and combined associations of CRF, BMI and body fatness with SSBP in young healthy adults. This dissertation is comprised of three studies that were designed to 1) analyze the relation and trend of SSBP with CRF among young healthy men; 2) analyze the relation and trend of SSBP with body fatness among young healthy men; and 3) examine the association and trend displayed by SSBP with different levels of CRF and body fatness among young healthy women. Data used in these studies were drawn from the Energy Balance Study, an observational study done in Columbia, SC involving young healthy adults (N=430). We calculated body fat percentage (BF%) and fat mass index using total body fat (BF) measured by dual X-ray absorptiometry (DXA); BMI was calculated using the average of two height and two weight measurements. Graded exercise tests (GXT) using a Modified Bruce protocol on a motorized treadmill were used to measure CRF and SSBP was measured at each stage of GXT. Study 1 found that a quadratic trend was evident between SSBP and CRF in a model adjusted for age, race, BF%, resting systolic blood pressure (SBP), alcohol intake and smoking, with the largest reduction in SSBP observed between men in Quintile (Q) 1 and 2. This is followed by a plateau at Q 3, and increase in the higher quintiles although still lower than Q 1. Study 2 found that there was no significant change in SSBP with increase in weight and fatness from normal to overweight range but a significant rise with further increase in obese range at minutes 6, 8, and 10 (P\u3c0.05 in most or borderline associations in few) after adjusting for age, race, resting SBP, alcohol intake, smoking, and CRF. Study 3 found that CRF appeared to be independently associated with SSBP at the lower exercise intensities whereas, BMI at the higher intensities. BF% was not independently associated with SSBP at any intensity of exercise

Fiscal policy and asset purchases in a liquidity constrained economy

This thesis modifies the basic neoclassical DSGE model of Kiyotaki and Moore (2012) by introducing a government which levies distortionary taxes on wages and dividends, consumes general output, issues money, and holds privately-issued equity. The thesis answers two questions - Can discretionary policy relieve the effects of liquidity constraints that limit investment, and thereby stimulate economic activity in normal times? Can discretionary policy ameliorate the effects of an exogenous liquidity shock? Including distortionary taxes is a unique modification within a branch of literature that extends the work of KM and studies liquidity shocks. The thesis belongs to a branch of this literature which modifies KM's basic model, but none of these papers have distortionary taxes and none examine fiscal policy. The thesis extends the literature with a novel variant of the basic KM model and with a novel set of policies against a liquidity shock. The results are as follows. Firstly, if money supply is constant and government spending varies to always balance the fiscal budget, then across-the-board tax cuts persistently stimulate the economy and a cut in the rate of tax on dividends ameliorates a liquidity shock without additional distortions. These responses are robust to the model's calibration. Secondly, an increase in government spending, financed by more taxes or selling equity holdings, persistently worsens economic activity and exacerbates a liquidity shock; financing the policies is what brings adverse results. Thirdly, the direct effects of a government equity purchase programme are short-lived - investment rises and new equity is added to the market which partially offsets the government's purchase. Financing the programme with spending cuts do less harm than raising taxes. Adding monetary expansion to the policy mix improves aggregate supply but reduces aggregate demand. When used against a liquidity shock, the programme makes a positive but short-lived difference

Effect of dyeing process on tensile strength properties of polyester/cotton blended yarns

The change in the tensile strength properties of 45 Nepolyester/cotton(40/60) blended yarn after dyeing process hasbeen investigated. The tensile strength properties of the grey yarnhave also been tested for comparison. In the blended yarn, thepolyester component is first dyed with disperse dye followed bythe dyeing of cotton component with reactive dye. After dyeingboth of the polyester and cotton parts, wax based softener is usedfor finishing. It is observed that there is a significant drop intenacity of the yarn along with the gain in elongation-at-breakafter the dyeing in comparison of grey yarn. The tensile strengthproperties are investigated at three stages, viz immediately afterdyeing of polyester component, after dyeing of cotton componentand then after the application of softener. It is found that the dropin tenacity of the yarn after dyeing of cotton part is much higherthan the drop found immediately after polyester dyeing. The valueof elongation-at-break has increased very significantly afterdyeing of polyester component. The elongation-at-break dropsafter dyeing of cotton component but remains always higher thanthe grey yarn. The softener application also plays a role in drop oftenacity and increase in elongation-at-break

Balanced budget stimulus with tax cuts in a liquidity constrained economy

This paper examines the macroeconomic effects of unexpected, exogenous, simultaneous, temporary cuts to income tax rates in an economy when the government follows a balanced budget fiscal rule and keeps money supply constant, and private agents face constraints on the ability to finance investments. The main results are that the tax cuts increase output, private consumption, and investment; the increases in output and consumption are significant and long-lasting; and the liquidity constraints play a major role in the shock's long-term persistence. Results are obtained from calibrating a modified version of the DSGE model of liquidity and business cycles by Kiyotaki and Moore (2012). The modifications are twofold: (i) distortionary taxes to labour and dividend incomes are added, and (ii) the government follows a balanced budget fiscal rule and keeps money supply constant. Results are qualitatively robust, but quantitatively sensitive, to assumptions regarding structural parameter values, and qualitatively and quantitatively sensitive to significant variations in the persistence of tax shocks

Early detection of capping risk in pharmaceutical compacts

Capping is a common mechanical defect in tablet manufacturing, exhibited during or after the compression process. Predicting tablet capping in terms of process variables (e.g. compaction pressure and speed) and formulation properties is essential in pharmaceutical industry. In current work, a non-destructive contact ultrasonic approach for detecting capping risk in the pharmaceutical compacts prepared under various compression forces and speeds is presented. It is shown that the extracted mechanical properties can be used as early indicators for invisible capping (prior to visible damage). Based on the analysis of X-ray cross-section images and a large set of waveform data, it is demonstrated that the mechanical properties and acoustic wave propagation characteristics is significantly modulated by the tablet’s internal cracks and capping at higher compaction speeds and pressures. In addition, the experimentally extracted properties were correlated to the directly-measured porosity and tensile strength of compacts of Pearlitol®, Anhydrous Mannitol and LubriTose® Mannitol, produced at two compaction speeds and at three pressure levels. The effect compaction speed and pressure on the porosity and tensile strength of the resulting compacts is quantified, and related to the compact acoustic characteristics and mechanical properties. The detailed experimental approach and reported wave propagation data could find key applications in determining the bounds of manufacturing design spaces in the development phase, predicting capping during (continuous) tablet manufacturing, as well as online monitoring of tablet mechanical integrity and reducing batch-to-batch end-product quality variations

FedPNN: One-shot Federated Classification via Evolving Clustering Method and Probabilistic Neural Network hybrid

Protecting data privacy is paramount in the fields such as finance, banking, and healthcare. Federated Learning (FL) has attracted widespread attention due to its decentralized, distributed training and the ability to protect the privacy while obtaining a global shared model. However, FL presents challenges such as communication overhead, and limited resource capability. This motivated us to propose a two-stage federated learning approach toward the objective of privacy protection, which is a first-of-its-kind study as follows: (i) During the first stage, the synthetic dataset is generated by employing two different distributions as noise to the vanilla conditional tabular generative adversarial neural network (CTGAN) resulting in modified CTGAN, and (ii) In the second stage, the Federated Probabilistic Neural Network (FedPNN) is developed and employed for building globally shared classification model. We also employed synthetic dataset metrics to check the quality of the generated synthetic dataset. Further, we proposed a meta-clustering algorithm whereby the cluster centers obtained from the clients are clustered at the server for training the global model. Despite PNN being a one-pass learning classifier, its complexity depends on the training data size. Therefore, we employed a modified evolving clustering method (ECM), another one-pass algorithm to cluster the training data thereby increasing the speed further. Moreover, we conducted sensitivity analysis by varying Dthr, a hyperparameter of ECM at the server and client, one at a time. The effectiveness of our approach is validated on four finance and medical datasets.Comment: 27 pages, 13 figures, 7 table

Fetal absent/hypoplastic nasal bone: a single center follow up study from a tertiary referral hospital in India

Background: This study was undertaken to determine perinatal outcomes in fetuses with absent/hypoplastic nasal bone (AHNB) when considered as a broad entity irrespective of time at which it is identified and identify subgroups with the highest risk of abnormal outcome based on screening status and associated findings.Methods: This was an observational study involving a total of 142 pregnant women whose fetuses were identified with AHNB by ultrasongraphy (USG) during a three year period from January 2016 to December 2018. These women were offered aneuploidy screening/non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) or direct invasive testing either alone or in combination. Outcome data was collected and a sub-group analysis was done by dividing them into 8 subgroups based on screening status and associated findings.Results: Out of 12758 scans done during the study period, 142 fetuses (1.11%) were identified with AHNB. 80 (56%) opted the biochemical screening test, 5 (3.5%) opted NIPT while 60 (42.9%) opted for invasive testing. 21 (14.8%) had an abnormal karyotype. In sub-group analysis, the best outcome was seen in group 1, where the biochemical screening was negative and no other aneuploidy markers or anomalies were seen.Conclusions: The present study confirms the association of AHNB with chromosomal disease. However, isolated AHNB with low risk in biochemical screening is rarely associated with aneuploidy. In contrast, a significant no of fetuses yielded abnormal chromosome results when AHNB was associated with high risk in biochemical screening, additional aneuploidy markers or associated anomalies

Correlation of Solid Dosage Porosity and Tensile Strength with Acoustically Extracted Mechanical Properties

Currently, the compressed tablet and its oral administration is the most popular drug delivery modality in medicine. The accurate porosity and tensile strength characterization of a tablet design is vital for predicting its performance such as disintegration, dissolution, and drug-release efficiency upon administration as well as ensuring its mechanical integrity. In current work, a non-destructive contact ultrasonic approach and an associated testing procedure are presented and employed to quantify and relate the acoustically extracted mechanical properties of pharmaceutical compacts to direct porosity and tensile strength measurements. Based on a comprehensive set of experimental data, it is demonstrated how strongly the acoustic wave propagation is modulated and correlated to the tablet porosity and tensile strength of a compact made using spray-dried lactose and microcrystalline cellulose with varying mixture ratios. The effect of mixing ratio on the porosity and tensile strength on the resulting compacts is quantified and, with the acoustic experimental data, mixing ratio is related to the compact ultrasonic characteristics. The ultrasonic techniques provide a rapid, non-destructive means for evaluating compacts in formulation development and manufacturing. The presented approach and data could find critical applications in continuous tablet manufacturing, its real-time quality monitoring, as well as minimizing batch-to-batch quality variations